Flowering flame

CONTENT WARNING
This article talks about death, mourning, and a burial process. Please proceed at your own caution.

The flowering flame is a tradition brought by the Ashtarians. It is a tradition for the dead, to help them move to the next life and find peace. The tradition lasts since before the person dies and ends after they are buried, and is often performed for giving peace and comfort to the family.

The tradition

The Death

When the person is dying, a lit candle, blessed by their preferred god, is left at the feet of wherever they are lying down. When the person dies, the flame will snuff on its own and it is considered the dead has taken the flame with them, as a light that will accompany them on the path that waits for all the dead.

Once the flame is snuffed, the candle must be melted under the flame of an unblessed candle, as the melted wax will go with the departed and make their light last longer.

The last goodbye

The following day of the death, there will be a day of mourning in either the deceased's family house, the closest church of their preferred god, or at the building in the cemetery.

It is often shunned to visit the deceased if you didn't care about them or if you knew they were dying or sick and didn't try to visit or learn more about them, or just want to gossip. People who often visit the deceased are family, friends, or people from their hometown, but if the person was famous, more people often try to come visit just to gossip, which is often seen improper but people won't be shunned away. Some people visit only to give their condolences to the affected family and it's often appreciated.

Visitors often bring flowers for the deceased. The deceased family often let know the closest flower shop what flowers they'd like for the deceased in case people go to the shop to buy.

Tealight candle by Joanna Kosinska

The burial

The same night of the mourning day is often when the deceased gets buried, but if people await for distant relatives or friends that live far away, this can be delayed, often with the use of magic to cool down the body.

Not everyone's welcome to the bury, only the closest family are needed for it, but often the family will ask some people who came to mourn to accompany them in the burial process.

The deceased will be buried in the cemetery and after covering them with some dirt, the top of it will be covered with the gifted flowers.

The family

People often believe that once the dead stops living, they are gone and are about to be greeted by their preferred god, meaning the body is little else than a body, but the Flowering flame is still a very widespread and used traditional burial as it helps the family process the death and reach peace.

During the mourning day, the family often does things as the deceased loved doing, such as eating in their favourite restaurant, visiting their favourite spot in the town, etc.

Seeing people that cared about the deceased and doing things the deceased once loves are often comforting for the family, as it helps them process it all and let the deceased go in peace.

Closeup of multicoloured petaled roses by Uriel

Adea

Reaching Adea, people often didn't have family anymore or enough time to do the whole process as it should, and thus, some changes had to be done.

Unfortunately, often people died before being able to have a flame next to them, thus, when people gathered corpses and other people died alone, they often are put together. One candle per deceased is added next to them, but once it snuffs out, the candle isn't fully melted as there wouldn't be enough candles for all the people then, and thus candles are reused. These candles are often unblessed or all blessed by one god, without it being necessarily the deceased's preferred god.

There's no time (and often no people) for mourning, as well as no place to bury them, so the deceased are often burned. Not everyone is happy of these changes, but their situation doesn't allow for much more.

Above-cloud photo of blue skies by Taylor van Riper